In a sample analyzer for analyzing samples such as urine and blood, maintenance of the apparatus is carried out according to a set plan (plan containing content and timing of maintenance) to mainly maintain a predetermined analytical precision. In the case of a blood coagulation measurement device, maintenance items include “pipette cleaning”, “sample tube discarding” of discarding used cuvette (sample tube) accommodated in a discarding container and emptying the container, “fluid discharging process” of used cleaning fluid, etc., “reagent condensation removal” of removing condensation attached to the reagent container, and the like. The maintenance includes items which are to be carried out on a regular basis, and items which are carried out on an irregular basis such as replacement of consumable goods, pressure adjustment of air pressure source used in suction and dispensing of samples and reagents, and the like.
The maintenance includes items which are carried out by user or service person with the operation of the apparatus in a stopped state such as “sample tube discarding” and “reagent condensation removal”, and items which require the apparatus to be operating such as “pipette cleaning”. In the latter case, cases where the replacement task itself is performed by hand, but where the apparatus must be operated for replacement, such as the case in “pipette replacement”, are also included. Specifically, in “pipette replacement”, operations of moving the pipette to a replacement position, and returning the pipette to the original position after the replacement task by hand is completed are necessary. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2-150770 discloses an automatic analyzer that measures the number of operating times and the operating time of a mechanism section, stores the measured operating mechanism section by time, determines, from the stored content, whether or not it is in a period of time suited for maintenance operation such as period of time in which the analyzer is not used, and issues a maintenance start signal to perform the maintenance operation when determined as being in the period of time suited for maintenance operation.
Conventionally, such maintenance recording is carried out by the user writing the items performed only by hand and the items performed by operating the apparatus on a paper (maintenance record field written or attached to an apparatus manual or a copy of the same is often used). Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 9-211003 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-181744 disclose an analyzer that stores the date the maintenance task was implemented and displays the date on the display section.
The maintenance recording paper is often attached to the manual, but in the conventional recording method, the chances of looking at the manual lowers as one gets familiarized with the operation of the apparatus, and thus may forget to record. The operation of the analyzer and the analyzing task are performed using a computer such as a personal computer, and the implementation of the maintenance involving the operation of the apparatus is also performed by instruction from an input means of the computer. In this case, the user instructs the implementation of the maintenance to the computer, and after checking the completion of the maintenance, the user must record the maintenance recording on the recording paper, which is a troublesome task. Furthermore, the recording paper is often not at hand when the user performing the analyzing task attempts to check the maintenance history, and thus the checking task becomes inconvenient.
In the automatic analyzer disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 9-211003 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-181744, since only the most recent date of when maintenance was implemented is merely displayed when displaying the maintenance recording, the user is only able to check at one time the most recent implementation date on the screen even for the maintenance task that is frequently (e.g., every day, every week) carried out, and thus cannot check at one time a plurality of maintenance implemented dates. Although it is desired that the person implementing the maintenance is also recorded in the maintenance history in terms of maintenance management, the user must input the person implementing the maintenance by hand in order to record the person implementing the maintenance in the automatic analyzer disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 9-211003, whereby it is a burden on the user to input the person implementing the maintenance for every maintenance task, and furthermore, the user might forget to input.